Explore Registers

Checks, deposits, and funds transfers from one account to another are all transactions that need to be entered in your account register. An account register uses boxes, called fields , to record all the information you need about the transaction, including the date, check number, payee, payment or deposit amount, category, and memo field. There's also a status box to indicate whether the transaction has cleared your bank or been reconciled with a bank statement. There is always a blank transaction at the bottom of the register, with labels to help you remember what information to enter. On Windows, there are also three buttons in the line item: Enter , which saves the transaction; Edit , which is a pop-up menu that offers you a variety of options; and Split , which opens the Split Transaction window (you'll learn more about splitting transactions later in this chapter). Account registers look slightly different, depending on the kind of account you are viewing. For instance, a credit card register uses Charge and Payment instead of Payment and Deposit.

On the Mac, the register looks much the same, except that there is an Open Split button, and the button you click to save the transaction is called Record and is at the bottom of the register window.